What command did you use to copy the kernel to /boot? Did you run make install? Did you use cp? What file did you copy?
If you can't answer the above, boot the live-cd, mount the partitions and post the output of ls -l /mnt/gentoo/boot here. It would also be helpful to see the output of ls -l /mnt/gentoo/usr/src/linux/arch/<arch>/boot._________________Jorge.

What command did you use to copy the kernel to /boot? Did you run make install? Did you use cp? What file did you copy?
If you can't answer the above, boot the live-cd, mount the partitions and post the output of ls -l /mnt/gentoo/boot here. It would also be helpful to see the output of ls -l /mnt/gentoo/usr/src/linux/arch/<arch>/boot.

Hi all, I just finished installing 2007 from the Live CD using the command line installer. Everything seemed to go swimmingly until I rebooted. Grub wasn't able to boot the OS. Here is how my Operating System harddrive is set up:

SDA1 WinXP
SDA5 PcLinux
SDA6 Swap
SDA7 Gentoo

I was able to use the PcLinux Live CD and restore the mbr, and mounted sda7.

Hi all, I just finished installing 2007 from the Live CD using the command line installer. Everything seemed to go swimmingly until I rebooted. Grub wasn't able to boot the OS. Here is how my Operating System harddrive is set up:
Here is the menu.lst that grub created:

Determining root device
Block device /dev/sda7 is not a valid root device
The root block device is unspecified or not detected

Any help would be appreciated. TIA

For starters, you can have a single boot partition, so you should decide if you want to boot from Gentoo's partition or from PcLinux's.
It seems you're using the latter and that it's working. The Block device /dev/sda7 is not a valid root device error, which is probably preceded by unknown block device sda7 (X,Y) means that you haven't built the support for your storage controller in the kernel <*> and not as a module <M>. If you have a SCSI or SATA controller, make sure you also build the support for SCSI, SCSI disk and SCSI generic in the kernel._________________Jorge.

like in the menu.lst generated by the gentoo install. (There it is (hd3,6)... typing error?).

gsoe,

tnat isn't true. Notice the kernel (hd0,6)/boot/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.20-gentoo-r8. The use of the root (hd0,6) line is not mandatory, it just maps / to (hd0,6). So having the above is the same as having:

Thanks guys. The problem was indeed Genkernel did not include Sata disk support in the compilation. I guess it pays to stick to manual kernel configuration._________________Frustration leads to knowledge.

now the special part of my problem: I have a Bios option to change the "Sata Mode" from "RAID" to "IDE". Probably a simulation of an IDE-HDD instad of a SATA-HDD.
And well, Grub works perfectly with this option changed. I read a lot about Grub and SATA. And as far as i (now) know, Grub handles SATA-Devices just as IDE-Devices. So there's no difference in configuration.

Thus I think it must be a SATA Problem...drivers perhaps?
I just don't know.

Your error message suggests that the BIOS loaded the MBR and the MBR loaded the Stage 1.5, which follows the MBR on the disk but that stage 1.5 didn't run.

Do you have a floppy drive ?
If not reinstall grub to the MBR manually, starting with

Code:

grub -no-floppy

Your grub.conf and /etc/fstab have not yet been read.

Your CPU is on the margins of being a 686. Please post your

Code:

emerge --info

and

Code:

less /proc/cpuinfo

If grub is compiled for a 686 and you have a miissing instruction, the CPU will halt when it gets an illegal instruction, as the early stages of grub have little ot no error handling_________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

However, using -mmmx -msse -msse2 -msse3 in CFLAGS allows gcc to determine when it will use these optimisations, which is not always safe on x86 because of what is called the 'excess precision bug' on Intel IA32. This feature stores intermediate results in the FPU to 80 bits, not the 64 used when they are commited to main memory, using -mmmx -msse -msse2 -msse3 in place of normal floating point operations changes the results you get.
I don't know why grub would want to use floats at all (or even if it does) but turn off these CFLAGS, emerge grub, reinstall it to the MBR and try again.

Some code is specially optimised to take advantage of these instruction set features, these special optimisations are activated with USE= flags, not CFLAGS._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

turn off these CFLAGS, emerge grub, reinstall it to the MBR and try again.

done

Code:

htpc # grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.

(hd0) /dev/sda

still the same "error"
why does the IDE-MODE work perfectly with Grub and the RAID-Mode not?

Using the IDE-Mode would make my HDD unable to use NCQ or other S-ATA features, but it would solve the problem

I read something about changing a "LBA" Option in BIOS, but this feature is only available when I use my SATA Device as "IDE" (then my HDD is added to die IDE-Options of my BIOS and I can change the LBA Mode there)

RAID mode in your BIOS may well want you to put two identical drives into a BIOS raid set. You cannot RAID a single drive, well, not usefully, anyway.
The kernel can cope with that but needs help from a third party module called dmraid.
BIOS raid is a BadThing - if you want to know more ask.

Choose IDE mode and tell us what devices you get in in /dev/ for your drive. If its /dev/sd... then the 'IDE-MODE' in your BIOS can be safely used.

You may nor be able to use NCQ, even if its supported by both your SATA controller and the drive.
This feature needs kernel support and that part of the code is not yet fully developed.
Its working on some chip sets._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

RAID mode in your BIOS may well want you to put two identical drives into a BIOS raid set. You cannot RAID a single drive, well, not usefully, anyway.
The kernel can cope with that but needs help from a third party module called dmraid.
BIOS raid is a BadThing - if you want to know more ask.

Choose IDE mode and tell us what devices you get in in /dev/ for your drive. If its /dev/sd... then the 'IDE-MODE' in your BIOS can be safely used.

You may nor be able to use NCQ, even if its supported by both your SATA controller and the drive.
This feature needs kernel support and that part of the code is not yet fully developed.
Its working on some chip sets.

thx for your answer

I tried to figure out, what IDE Mode means,in detail, but the only informatio I found was, that it will emulate an IDE Drive (what seemed to be right as my Bios changed the possible settings for my drive and RAID was the default setting)

But if IDE means SATA as single drive (although it's really confusing), then i can accept this
LILO probably doesn't need extra configuration for RAIDs, so it worked even with RAID setting enabled
and NCQ did not work because of the lack of kernel support. It does make sense now...
My drive is listet as /dev/sda, as you can see in my fstab, so I will set SATA-Mode to IDE

and if I want to use RAID, I've to change this setting and install Grub on both Hard Drives -right?
hm, sometimes I have the feeling, that some facturer just want you to get crazy

thanks for your help, although nothing changed...but the informations have been a great help

1. Hardware raid - the raid card does everything and the kernel sees the raid set as a single device, regardless of how many drives you have. Its expensive and is always a plug in card. You don't have this.

2. BIOS software raid. This behaves as if it were Hardware Raid but its not. Its often referred to as fake raid.
the raid is done in software in the BIOS. The kernel sees a single device and you trat is as such. You have this sort of raid.

3. Kernel software raid. The kernel does raid in software, with no BIOS support. You normally raid partitions, not whole drives and each raid set shows the underlying partitions and the logical multiple device. You almost never use the underlying partitions. You can use this sort of raid if you wish.

There are a few wrinkles with kernel raid. /boot must be on a raid1, or unraided device, or grub cannot read it.
You need to install grub (or lilo) on the MBR of each drive, if you want to be able to boot from any drive. This is because the bootloader installs on space outside the file systems._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

daemonflower: This is a long shot, but it is fairly easy to try out: Set the bootable flag to /dev/sda1; i seem to remember some BIOS that expected the bootloader to be installed in the bootable partition.

I suspect you are installing grub on one drive and booting from another, so there is no code to execute.
Do you have a USB drive (of any sort) connected during the grub install and attempted boot ?

gsoe,
That normally gets you an error message from the BIOS to the effect that there is no OS to boot.
Good call though - some modern BIOSes demand that exactly one partition is flagged bootable._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.